How Kissing Works
by Forget December
Summary: Ron brings up the subject of kissing one evening. Takes place during their first year. UPDATE Ch 2: Ron has a dream about watching an older version of himself and Hermione rowing through a beautiful lagoon from a movie muggle theater.
1. That Kissing Thing

Summary: Ron brings up the subject of kissing one evening, while him and Harry are doing their homework. Takes place during their first year.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns it all. :)

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"Harry, have you ever wondered how it's like?"

Harry looked up from his homework and looked over at Ron, who obviously had his mind on something else at the moment besides the Defense Against the Dark Arts essay due the following day. "How what's like?"

Ron quickly looked down at his lap. "You know… _kissing girls,_" he said quietly, almost at a whisper, his cheeks starting to redden

Harry didn't know how to respond to this. He never had anybody to talk about girls with. Dudley surely would've teased him mercilessly if he ever brought up the subject of kissing. "Well, er-"

"I mean, it can't be that gross, right? My older brother, Bill, always said that he enjoyed kissing girls. I even heard him say that," Ron squished up his face in disgust before continuing, "-that _he used his tongue_ once. Can you believe that? He actually stuck his tongue into another person's mouth!"

Harry took a moment to take this all in and had the mental image of an older version of Ron grabbing a girl's face and shoving his straight and stiff tongue into her mouth. He pictured Ron and the girl standing still with their faces against each others, with Ron's tongue still in her mouth. Harry never realized that friends talked to each other about things like this.

"Maybe your brother had a reason for using his tongue, Ron. Maybe, while they were _k-k-kissing_, the girl's mouth accidentally opened, and his tongue just, well…er, slipped through," Harry said, glad that he came up with a logical explanation. He really couldn't see any reason as to why _somebody's tongue wouldn't just accidentally end up in another person's mouth._

"No," Ron said, thinking it over, "no, I'm pretty sure Bill did it on purpose. I feel really sorry the girl though. For all we know, Bill could've been eating corned beef an hour before!"

Harry couldn't help but to laugh. If he would ever stick his tongue into a girl's mouth, which Harry decided would be never, he would at least do her a favor and brush his teeth before hand.

"I always wondered how kissing a girl would feel like, though." Ron sighed and crossed his arm, leaning his head back.

Harry was surprised that Ron wasn't embarrassed about admitting this. He never had anybody admit a personal secret like this to him before. It made him feel happy, in a way, that he could be trusted, that he had a friend who actually wanted to confess secrets to him. Harry decided that he should be honest about kissing girls with Ron too, even though he was too embarrassed to admit anything.

"Yeah," Harry started, somehow feeling a little glad to be getting it out, "me too." He smiled and looked at Ron, who was now doodling on a spare piece of parchment.

"It'd probably feel nice though, right? Nice, but maybe not _too_ nice. Weird, maybe. Weird, but in a nice way. Maybe… Oh what the bloody hell do I know? It's not like I've ever kissed a girl before!" Ron said a bit too loudly. He started drawing furiously on his piece of parchment, not noticing that a couple of people around them were starting to stare.

Meanwhile, Harry quickly turned around, quickly explaining to everybody that they were quoting lines from a muggle movie. They all look gave him confused looks but, thankfully for Harry, turned back to whatever they were doing.

He turned back to see Ron looking at his finished drawing, who had a very smug look on his face. "What's that?" Harry asked, trying to catch a glimpse of the parchment. He had secretly hoped that it was a hideous drawing of Professor Snape.

Ron quickly stuffed it his pocket. "Oh! Nothing, nothing."

"Hey, Ron, don't worry about it. I've never kissed a girl either," Harry said, trying to sound comforting. He gave Ron a hopeful smile. "And I'm sure nobody here really even cares if other's have been kissed or not. Well, I don't, at least."

"Yeah, well… I guess you're right. I mean, why should it matter, right? We're not even teenagers yet, so why _should_ it matter?"

"Right! We _are_ only 11-years-old, after all. Who would expect us to be expert kissers? We're still practically kids! We don't even have armpit hair!"

Ron flushed and stared down at his lap. "Well, actually…"

"Really? Is it red?"

"Harry!" He gave Harry a look. "And yeah, sorta. But there was only one little hair the last time I checked."

"Aww… little Ronnikin's been checking for armpit hair!"

"And he even has a little one!"

"I remember being eleven and doing quick little checks every now and then-"

"Turned out we both had several hairs on our pits as well."

"We were feeling like men already!"

Harry and Ron turned around to see Fred and George standing behind them, both of whom were looking pretty smug at the moment.

"So, Ron-"

"How long have you two been standing there?" Ron's face had suddenly very red. He didn't seem to thrilled to find his two older brothers listening in on their conversation.

"Long enough to know, little brother-"

George cut Fred off, finishing the rest of the sentence, as most twins did. "-That you are interested in knowing how kissing feels like. We didn't have any idea you were into girls yet."

"You should've come to us, Ron. We both happen to have some expertise in the area of kissing girls-"

"Me, a little more than Fred over here!"

Fred placed his hand on his hips and gasped, trying to sound offened. "How could you say that? We've both gotten 2 kisses each… Unless," he gasped again, "George Weasley, have you been keeping secrets from me? Could you have possibly gotten kissed by Angelina on the Hogwarts Express before we came home last year?"

"You kissed that girl on the Quidditch team?" Ron asked, almost sounding impressed.

It was George's turn to blush. "Yeah well… Hey! How did you know?"

"Well, let's just say that I have my sources," Fred said, acting like some detective, "Plus, I saw you leaving the compartment with that 'I just got kissed' face of yours in a hurry. Tsk, tsk. I should've known not to leave you two alone in there, even for just a minute."

"That's besides the point! The point is: Our littlest brother is in need with some help. And us, being the older, role model brothers, need to help him out!"

Harry secretly wished that he had older brothers that could look out for him and help him whenever he needed it, even if they were just doing it just to get into his personal business. He always envied the fact that Ron had such a big family from the time since he had met him on the train.

"Well, your little brother does not need help, thank you very much! Your little brother would, in fact, appreciate it if you two would stop eavesdropping on his private conversations!" Ron turned back around and faced the table they were sitting at, pretending to be writing something down on a piece of parchment, which reminded Harry about the essay he still had to finish.

"Me 'n Ron, we should probably finish that essay we have for tomorrow," Harry murmured at Fred and George. He looked down at the ground, not exactly sure what to say next. He didn't want to come in between things between Ron and his brothers.

It became clear to Harry that Ron didn't feel too comfortable talking to his brothers about things like this. Harry was sure that if he had an older friend or brother who knew about these things that he would go to them and ask for advice. Then again, he had been nervous when Ron and brought up the subject on kissing with him, and he did feel a little uneasy about talking about it openly, so he decided that he couldn't blame Ron. Though, Harry secretly rejoiced in the fact that Ron choose to talk to him about the subject over his brothers.

"It's okay, Ron," Fred finally spoke.

"Yeah, we weren't exactly all that open when Percy gave us advice on this sort of thing either-"

Ron snorted and turned around. "Percy? Really?" he asked, sounding interested. "When?"

George smiled. "A while back. The whole talk was a little too embarrassing-"

"Yeah, I remember him saying 'George, Fred, remember to kiss girls as if you're kissing a pillow. Their lips are soft, not hard like apples.'"

Ron bursted out laughing. "You serious?"

Fred and George both nodded.

"As much as it hurts us to say-"

"Yeah, Percy's about the world's worst advice giver."

"We pretty much begged him to stop when he got to the part about comparing making out to having porridge in your mouth-"

"Never looked at breakfast foods the same again," Fred said, shuddering.

Ron opened his mouth to say something, but suddenly closed it. He never thought Fred and George would be talking to him about kissing. It was probably the last subject he thought the three of them would ever discuss. Ron finally managed to get a word out: "P-porridge?"

"Mmhmm… and we are extremely sorry if that just took away your love for porridge."

"Yeah, well-" Ron started.

"Listen, we're just offering our knowledge about kissing to you before Percy comes and scars you for life. It's what brothers are for, anyway," George said.

"Right. So if you and Harry want to hear it from us first, rather than going out and kissing some girl and embarrassing yourself just to find out, just let us know."

"We promise we won't make fun of you-"

"Okay, maybe just a little bit- Ow!"

George had elbowed Fred on the side. "Ignore what Fred said. We're at your service, Ron."

Ron could tell that they seriously wanted to give him advice. "Well, er, maybe tomorrow, we sort of have this essay due tomorrow." He looked up at his brothers. "I could use some help on it actually. You two said you'd be willing to help, after all."

Fred and George looked as if they were trying to come up with an excuse to not help Ron.

"We actually sorta meant we'd help you out-"

"With issues when it comes to girls. Homework help wasn't included in the package."

Ron turned around, towards the blank roll of parchment that he had to fill before the night ended. "I got an essay to finish," Ron said, with his backs towards them, "thanks for the offer, though. I think I can figure out how kissing works by myself."

"If you say so," said Fred. He and George walked away, leaving Harry and Ron alone once again.

"So… about what Fred and George said," Harry started, looking at Ron.

Ron flipped open the thick Defense the Dark Arts book that had been lying on the table for the past hour. "Not now, Harry. We should finish our homework."

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Next Chapter:

_Ron pulled Harry aside. "What if we ask Hermione?" _

_Harry looked confused. "Ask her what?"_

_"If we could, you know-" Ron stopped and looked both ways, checking to see if anybody was listening to them. "Ask if we could kiss her, just to see how it feels like," he finished._

_Harry looked at Ron as if he had just come up with the craziest idea yet. He shook his head, placed a hand on Ron's shoulder, and said, "I'm really sorry, but you're starting to get a little too desperate about this whole kissing thing._


	2. Of Pillows and Lagoons

A/N: I actually rewrote this chapter and didn't include the stuff on my last preview. I'm really sorry about that! You'll actually find that on chapter 3, unless I decide to re-write that chapter, too, haha.

This chapter probably won't make any sense if you haven't seen Disney's "The Little Mermaid." If you haven't seen it, shame on you (hehe just kidding)! It's a Disney classic!

And thank you so much to everybody who reviewed on the last chapter!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and The Little Mermaid belong to their original creators.

Harry and Ron finished their essays about an hour after Fred and George had talked to them. They remained silent and barely spoke, talking only when they needed help on their essays, only exchanging a couple of words. Harry had spent the whole time debating on when to say something that wasn't related to their homework, mainly something about what had just happened between Ron and his brothers. The silence had made him feel very uncomfortable. _I just have to wait for the right time to pop up,_ Harry had thought, but he had missed his shot when Ron got up and murmured that he was going to bed.

Ron was now lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The dormitory was empty except for him; it was only half past 8 o'clock after all. Everybody else was down in the common room hanging out, or doing homework. He had thought that Harry might've followed him up when he had said that he was going to bed. Ron was sort of disappointed that he had not but glad at the same time. He didn't want to deal with anybody at the moment.

Too many thoughts were floating inside of his head. Ron had no idea why he was feeling so weird. All he had done was talk to Harry, Fred, and George about kissing. That's it, just kissing. Ron had spent lots of time talking to them before, about Quidditch and other things. So why should talking about girls be different? Girls were just girls, and kissing was just kissing.

And why did he bring up the subject of kissing in the first place? Ron suddenly realized that he had no idea why he did. It wasn't as if he was planning to talk to Harry about it or anything. The words just seemed to have come out naturally at the time, even though he had never discussed kissing with anybody else before.

Ron tried to shake the thoughts out of his head. He turned to the side and closed his eyes. _Why am I making such a big deal about this,_ Ron thought, suddenly feeling sleepy.

Out of nowhere, Percy's advice that Fred had told him earlier came to his mind: "Remember to kiss girls as if you're kissing a pillow."

Ron opened his eyes and lifted his head. He looked down at the pillow. It was fluffy and white, and it seemed to be calling out to Ron: "Kiss me".

He stared down at the pillow for a moment, thinking it over. The picture of a certain girl came to his mind for a brief second. "What! No, this is crazy! I'm going to sleep."

Ron made to go back to sleep, but suddenly stopped and looked at the pillow one more time. Nobody was in the dormitory except for him, so maybe if he did it really quickly…

"I'm gonna kill Percy for giving Fred and George this idea," Ron murmured quickly and brought his face down to the pillow. He awkwardly puckered his lips, closing his eyes, expecting to feel the pillow against his mouth any moment. A mental image of that same girl came to his mind when Ron's mouth had made contact the pillow, but he quickly pushed the thought of her away. His lips touched the pillow for several seconds before lifting his head off.

_So this is how a kiss is supposed to feel like? Soft… and kinda dry? _Ron thought. He suddenly felt very embarrassed for even trying such a thing and swore to himself that he would never tell anybody about what he had just done.

Ron turned the pillow over and proceeded to go to sleep again, the thought of Fred and George trying to kiss their pillows causing him to silently laugh himself off to sleep...

_Ron was sitting in a chair in the middle of a row of empty seats. They were all identical to the one he was sitting on: cushioned, with arm rests on either side. He looked around and saw that there were several more rows of seats in front and behind him. He appeared to be sitting in the center of a muggle movie theater. The whole room was empty except for him. The theatre seemed small and cramped, and there weren't any aisles at either side of the room. The rows of seats stretched from one side to the other, side by side, barely leaving any gaps between the arm rests. How was one supposed to get out? Hop over the seats? Ron stood up to go find an exit, but the lights above him suddenly dimmed, leaving the room in semi-darkness._

_He sat back down, starting to become frightened. "Err.. What's going on?" Ron said to no one in particular. He twisted around in his seat, looking towards the back of the theater, squinting his eyes and searching for some sort of door to lead him out. _

_It had become very dark; the electric lights on the ceiling gave off very little light. Ron turned back around and reached into the pocket of his robes for his wand. He brought it out and said, "Lumos." _

_The room remained dark._

_Ron's heart started to beat faster. This couldn't be good. Why wasn't hadn't his spell worked? "Lumos!" he said again._

_Nothing happened, again._

_Ron was starting to become very worried and scared. There was the fact that he was stuck in the middle of a room without any visible exit and the fact that his wand didn't seem to be working. Plus, he was all alone. Normally, Harry and Hermione were with him in situations like this one, but he didn't have anybody to help him or give him ideas._

_He took a deep breathe and prepared to cast the spell one more time. _If it doesn't work this time, then I should really start to worry, _Ron thought. He held his wand high and poured every single inch of his concentration into this simple spell._

"_Lumos!" Ron yelled._

_Nothing._

_Ron took another deep breathe and thrust his wand hand higher into the air. _ No, no, I _will_ make this work, he thought.._ "Lumos! Lumos! Lumos! Lumos! Luuumooooss! Godammit, you stupid wand! Lumos!" The room remained dark, once again. He sat back down. "This is hopeless."_

_Suddenly, the big screen in the front of the theater turned on. Ron jumped; he had never seen of a muggle device like this work before. _Right… these things are called "tell-visions", _Ron recalled, _though I remember Dad saying that they were much smaller than this. _He looked it up and down. It was at least 25 feet tall. _

_The "very large tell-vision" was showing a green screen with white text on it. "The following movie has been rated GENERAL AUDIENCES by the…" Ron read aloud. He tried to recalled anything about movies that he had heard about but remembered nothing. "Well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens, then."_

_The movie screen faded back to black and suddenly flashed through a series of scenes moving at a very rapid pace. It was as if the movie was on fast-forward. Ron watched, confused, trying to make out what he was seeing on the screen. He saw many half-naked people with large, green fins, where their legs should have been, swimming around under water, along with various sea animals, moving around very quickly. Then, a minute or so later, Ron saw the movie come from taking place in the ocean to taking place on land. There was a brown-haired girl and a man moving quickly around the screen, and a little red critter showing up every now and then. Ten seconds later, the movie slowed down to normal pace and sound started to come out from the speakers on the wall. _

_Ron nearly choked when he saw what was happening on the screen. He saw an older version of himself (_Whoa, I sure turn out good, _Ron thought) and a young lady with brown hair in a small wooden boat in the middle of a lagoon. There was something strangely familiar about that girl… The screen showed a close up on her face. She was very pretty, with long, wavy brown hair flowing down from her head. The girl was staring and smiling sweetly at the older version of Ron on the movie screen._

_Ron gawked. "N-no, that can't be- that can't be Hermione!" Ron yelled, in shock. He was sitting on the edge of his seat, gripping tightly on the arm rests. His heart beat quickened. …But there was definitely a resemblance between her and the younger Hermione that was one of his best friends._

_He was watching himself row their boat through the lagoon. They were floating in the middle of an open lagoon, the sky above them colored red, purple, and orange from the setting sun, with long wisps of cloud scattered amongst it. Several willow trees were surrounding them. The ends of their leaves drooped down towards the water. There were lily pads floating around the lagoon and various weeds planted on the outskirts. The atmosphere seemed to have a nice bluish-green hue to it, reflecting the water, which only formed little ripples every time the on-screen Ron rowed the oars to move their boat. _

_Then, Ron saw a seagull talking to a little yellow and blue fish. "…Only one day left, and that boy ain't puckered up once," he heard it say, " O.K. All right, this calls for a little vocal romantic stimulation."_

"_Puckered up? Romantic stimulation?" Ron yelled frantically, wondering what that big, white bird was talking about. _

_The seagull flew to the branch of a willow tree that was nearby their boat. It started cawing loudly, in a very painful way, equivalent to the sound of nails on a chalkboard. _

_For the first time, Ron heard his on-screen self talk. "Somebody should find that poor animal and put it out of its misery," the older Ron said. His voice was deeper than Ron's, more mature sounding. _

"_Too true," Ron said in response, feeling weird. It was awkward seeing a future version of himself projected over 10 times his size on the big screen. _

_Ron leaned one of his elbows on the arm rest and rested his head on the palm of his hand, continuing to watch the movie with a tired expression. He saw a crab swim under the lagoon, ripping off a piece of an underwater weed, saying "You want something done, you've got to do it yourself." It came back to the surface and held the piece of weed like a rod, like how music conductors did. "First we've got to create the mood," the crab said to nobody in particular. It turned towards several ducks and turtles. "Percussion." The ducks flipped over the turtles so that they were floating on their shell and started hitting on them as if they were drums, making a bongo drum sound. The crab then faced a group of grasshoppers sitting on the leaves of a water plant. "Strings," it instructed them. The grasshoppers started rubbing their hind legs together, creating soft sounds that one would hear if he or she were to take a walk down a road in the country at night. A soft melody was filling the lagoon as the older Ron and Hermione sat in their wooden boat, rowing through the water. There was just one thing missing in the little song that the sea-critters were creating… The crab took a little bow to himself. "Words." _

_Ron raised an eyebrow. He had never seen animals playing music, let alone interacting like this, concluding that this was definitely on his top five list of weirdest things that he has ever seen. What Ron saw happened next surprised him… The crab was singing. He bursted out laughing. _

"_A crab singing!" Ron said, "this is hilarious!" _

_The crab had a dreamy look on its face, serenading Ron and Hermione. _

"_There you see her_

_Sitting there across the way_

_She don't got a lot to say_

_But there's something about her_

_And you don't know why_

_But you're dying to try_

_You wanna kiss the girl"_

_Ron suddenly stood up. "Hey! Hey! I don't wanna kiss Hermione!" he screamed at the crab. "Hey! You stupid crab, take that back! You don't even know me! You can't just assume that some guy that you've never ever met wants to kiss his friend!" Ron was now blushing furiously. He took his wand out of his robe's pocket and pointed it towards the movie screen. "Why don't you come down here, you crab? Come down here and face me like a man!" He didn't seem to have any idea that people on the movie screen couldn't interact with people sitting in the theater, like wizard paintings could. Ron looked down at his wand and remembered that it wasn't working. "Oh-okay! My wand might not be working, but- but… er… I know! I'll eat you for dinner if you don't shut up about me kissing Hermione! Yeah! I'll cook you up, eat you with some nice, melted butter," he paused, "You know… that doesn't sound bad, sounds good actually. I could use some crab. Wait, that's not the point! The point is-" _

_The crab continued to sing, as if he had never heard Ron, and was joined by several other sea-critters._

"_Yes, you want her_

_Look at her, you know you do_

_Possible she wants you too"_

_Ron stared, horrified, a the movie screen. He didn't know how to respond to what _that stupid crab_ was singing. All he knew was that he didn't want Hermione and there was no way in the world that she wanted him too. Or at least he thought so. Ron continued to watch all the little animals sing. This was certainly a nightmare._

"_There is one way to ask her_

_It don't take a word_

_Not a single word_

_Go on and kiss the girl" _

_Ron was hoping with every fiber in his body that the older version of him wouldn't kiss her. _I mean, _he thought, _I can't be that stupid.

_But the way Hermione was looking at him on the movie screen… Ron noticed the that she was staring at him as if… as if she was in love. _

_He froze for a moment. "Hermione, in love with me!" Ron spat. "N-no! H-how! Why?" _

_The rest of the scene passed by as Ron stared down at the ground trying to sort things out. He never really had thought of Hermione _in that way_ before. They hadn't even known each other for a whole year yet. _

Plus she's too bossy and smart,_ Ron thought, not that he had any problem with girls who were really smart. It was just that _this was Hermione,_ his friend. _

_When Ron looked back up at the movie screen, he nearly fell out of his seat. Him and Hermione were still sitting in their boat, but they were now holding hands and staring into each others eyes. The sea-critters around them were all swimming and dancing around them. Their boat was slowly spinning in the water, and their faces neared each other. "Go on, kiss the girl," the animals were whispering, looking hopeful. _

"_Hey! Older Ron! Stop! Don't kiss her! Please!" Ron yelled at himself. He saw that he obviously wasn't paying any attention to what Ron was telling him. The older Ron looked as if he actually did want to kiss Hermione, and some part of the younger Ron actually did want to see him kiss Hermione, even though he didn't want to admit it._

_Ron's heart was beating like crazy, feeling as if he was going to have a heart attack. "I need to get out of here! I can't watch this," he said, breathing heavy. Ron stood up to go find an exit of some kind. Any means of getting out of that theater would be fine, as long was he didn't have to sit through this. But as Ron got to his feet, an invisible pair of hands pushed him back down. "No! What's going on?" He stood back up, but was forced him back towards the chair again. Ron turned his face to the side, so that the screen wasn't in his view, but his face was suddenly wrenched so that it was facing forward. He realized that somebody out there wanted him to see what was going to happen and stopped trying to fight it. _

Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe I'll just somehow forget about seeing this. …I mean, I'm just watching myself about to kiss a girl. It's not as if I'm _actually _kissing Hermione, _Ron thought, calming himself down. _

_He held his breathe, watching their faces nearing each others. Three inches apart. Two inches… Ron suddenly wished that he had the ability to Apparate. This was starting to be a little too much for him. One inch… His and Hermione's faces nearly touched. But just at the last moment, right before their lips made contact, something caused the boat capsize._

Ron woke up with a start. His whole body was sweating, and he started to recall what he had just dreamed about. _I almost kissed Hermione… _Sitting up, Ron pulled the blankets off of him and looked around. He was back in the boys' dormitory, not in that nightmarish muggle movie theater. _  
_

Ron got out of bed, promising himself that he wouldn't tell anybody about that dream.

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Next Chapter:

_Ron starts going crazy and can't get the dream out of his head! Hermione's on his mind almost every second of the day, and he can't help but to blush every time he sees her or hears her name. Will Harry and Hermione ever figure out why Ron's acting so weird? And just how far will Ron go to get a kiss from Hermione? _

_Keep watch for Chapter 3 of "How Kissing Works", which will be posted by next weekend, hopefully._

Thanks for reading! Please review! (And don't flame me for making Ron and Hermione look "too beautiful" in Ron's dream. It's Ron's dream and he can make anything any way he wants.)


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